He noted that the planning of the Rail Baltica project is wrong at the national level. If the project costs were once planned at EUR 1.9 billion, they are now projected at around EUR 10 billion.
"Of course, there is inflation, but it is clear that there has been no good planning and progress of the project. Personally, I do not understand how we could now support an expenditure of almost 10 billion for Rail Baltica. Perhaps many people had a dream that we would get on a train in Riga and get off in Berlin, but now we realise that we will not get on in Riga, but in Salaspils. EUR 10 billion! Latvia has no money, but there is no one that is saying that we honestly cannot afford the Rail Baltica project," said Krauze.
The minister stressed that Latvia cannot allocate such money from the budget for the project, which makes it necessary to borrow. Brussels initially promised to finance 85 percent of the project, but now it can be concluded that the actual funding will be much lower and it may happen the other way round that 15 percent is given by Brussels and 85 percent has to be financed by Latvia.
"I cannot accept that my children and grandchildren will pay for Rail Baltica, where we do not know yet whether there will be trains that will go on this line. Nobody is talking about them at the moment," said Krauze.
The minister pointed out that this is his personal opinion and was not discussed in the party. In the Greens/Farmers’ opinion, 85 percent of the project should be financed by Europe and that the Rail Baltica route should also come through Riga, and that the financial sources should be known.
"If we don’t have money, then we don’t buy luxury items for ourselves, our house or our family. In this case, we are sitting in a wooden shed and dreaming that we will have a castle, that someone will give us billions to build this castle," the minister noted.
He also mentioned that there are many myths surrounding the project, such as military mobility. Military mobility is very important, but currently there is a good road network available for this purpose and in the case of Rail Baltica only four bridges are planned to be built in Latvia, which, given the way bridges have been destroyed in the military conflict in Ukraine, will not be of significant value for military mobility.
Bridges cannot be protected and a good road network is more important for military mobility, Krauze explained.
As reported, Saeima on 13 June decided to set up a parliament inquiry committee, proposed by a group of 34 opposition and unaffiliated lawmakers to examine the mistakes made during the implementation of the Rail Baltica railway project.
The ad hoc panel was tasked with identifying the mistakes that have been made while implementing the transnational railway infrastructure project, „so that decisions are taken in a transparent and timely manner, taking into account the national and public interest, the impact on the Latvian economy and the state budget,“ the lawmakers said.
According to the latest Rail Baltica cost-benefit analysis, the total cost of the line in the Baltics could reach EUR 23.8 billion, including EUR 15.3 billion for the first phase of the project in the Baltics and EUR 6.4 billion in Latvia. A previous cost-benefit analysis in 2017 estimated the total cost of the project at EUR 5.8 billion.
Latvia is to commence construction of the Rail Baltica mainline in 2024.
Rail Baltica is a double track, European standard 1,435 mm gauge electrified railway for passenger and freight transport to be built from Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border. The overall length of the railway will be 870 kilometres.